Bush appoints VC as top tech advisor

E Floyd Kvamme of technology-focused venture capitalist firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield & Byers, was appointed co-chair of the President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology this week.

Kvamme told the House Financial Services Committee that in the current climate of weakness in the technology markets and a downturn in demand, it has become tough for the fast-growing companies to get the financial backing necessary for growth. Thus it is essential, he argued, that Congress adopts a laissez-faire attitude to both capital gains tax, which covers the windfalls from share options, and regulation of the IT industry.

Bush chose Kvamme, who was a major financial contributor to his election campaign, over a host of big IT names that had publicly pledged their support for Bush.

An advert which ran in the San Jose Mercury newspaper in September last year listed technology bigwigs backing Bush. Those named included Sun Microsystems chairman and CEO Scott McNealy; Barksdale Group CEO Jim Barksdale; Cisco Systems president and CEO John Chambers; Dell Computer Corporation chairman and CEO Michael Dell; EMC chairman Dick Egan; Texas Instruments chairman, president and CEO Thomas J Engibous; Intel chairman Emeritus Gordon Moore; and Microsoft executive vice president and COO Bob Herbold.

Arguably one of the least well known amongst this list of names, Kvamme worked for chipmaker National Semiconductor from 1967, becoming president of National's computer subsidiary, National Advanced Systems, in 1979. Between 1982 and 1984, he was executive vice president of sales and marketing for Apple, thereafter becoming a venture capitalist.

He sits on the boards of Brio, Gemfire, Harmonic Lightwaves, National Semiconductor, Photon Dynamics, Power Integrations, Prism Solutions and Triquint Semiconductor.